


Not exactly cuddly

by aseriesofessays



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Drug Use, Fluff, M/M, drug mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-30
Updated: 2016-03-30
Packaged: 2018-05-30 02:25:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6404890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aseriesofessays/pseuds/aseriesofessays
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He inspects the bike rack for a solid minute before remembering that he doesn’t even own a bike and is still staring in muddled confusion when Enjolras comes out in a jingle of bells, and, like, self righteousness.</p><p>“What are you doing?”</p><p> “I don’t have a bike,” Grantaire answers, and they both kind of stare at each other for a minute.</p><p>“Okay?”</p><p>Grantaire nods, possibly more times than entirely necessary, and turns to go. </p><p>“Wait,” says Enjolras, reluctantly. “Do you have any way of getting home?”</p><p>Grantaire points at his feet. Enjolras purses his lips in disapproval. </p><p>“Right. Do you want a ride?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not exactly cuddly

Grantaire’s so ridiculously drunk.

 

He’s drunk a lot. He’s drunk all the time, if he’s being honest with himself- he wakes up in the morning and drinks his hangover away. He was practically born with a bottle in his hand.

 

But. This is new. This is different. This is-

 

Oh, wait. Maybe he isn’t drunk.

 

“What’m I doing?” He slurs, which doesn’t bring on a round of giggles because everyone’s already laughing.  _ It does bolster the color _ , he thinks, and itches for a paintbrush. 

 

“Grantaire, are you high?” It’s Enjolras, presumably. He tries and fails to zero in on his face.

 

Is he high? He is high. Huh. 

 

“Uh,” he says, blinking hard and looking around. He’s in the Musain, he’s pretty sure, just sort of hovering in his normal corner. “I don’t know.”

 

“How do you not know if you’re high?” mutters Eponine, tugging him into his seat by his elbow. Grantaire blinks at her. 

 

“Uh,” he says again. He can hear his heartbeat. He also hear his hair growing, if he concentrates. 

 

“Yeah, you’re high. Shut up and pretend to pay attention.”

 

Grantaire lolls his head to the side, shrugs, and inspects his hands. They’re splattered with paint, even though he can’t actually remember painting. There’s a big smudge of red across his left palm, his fingers are stained blue on both hands, and there’s yellow all up his wrist. Cool. 

 

“D’you think bees know how important they are?” He asks Eponine. She snorts, which he takes as a ‘no’. “‘S kinda sad, yeah?”

 

“Tragic,” she agrees. “Focus.”

 

He doesn’t, but the blades of a ceiling fan capture his attention. They’re pretty. If he painted them, maybe red and blue or something, they’d be even prettier. He could do that, probably. Might have trouble getting up there. 

 

“Eponine,” he says suddenly, “Eponine, I’m high.”

 

She gives him a look, pulls him back down when he tries to get up. “Calm down, genius. Actually-” she lets him free. “no, just go outside.”

 

He nods slowly, leaves as quietly as he can manage because that seems kind of important right now.

 

Seriously, why the hell is he high? He should be able to remember-

 

Montparnasse. Oh. Yeah, duh.

 

He’d been stuck in a creative rut, and the first thing he could think of was pot. (In his defense, he’s had very little sleep lately.) Grantaire glances down at his hands- at least it looks like he actually got some work done.

 

He lies down, staring at the ceiling. It’s nice, as ceilings go. Off white- really more of a cream, if he’s being honest. Very smooth. You could go ice skating on that ceiling, probably, if you were somehow able to reverse gravity. Scoop out a section for your coffee. Plop a dollop on some pie. Two dollops. 

 

“There’s enough ceiling to go around,” he mumbles to himself, and then giggles. Maybe he should paint that, too, so it doesn’t look so appetizing. Or maybe he should paint it with pictures of food, because this is a cafe.

 

Jesus, he’s hungry.

 

Jesus, he wants to paint. 

 

He drums his heels against the ground, blows at a curl of hair that’s settled over his right eye. How long has he been awake? 

 

He digs out his phone, checks the timestamp on his last text to Montparnasse. Sometime early yesterday, which, okay. Then he checks his notes, which is slightly discouraging. 

 

_ You’re a useless motherfukcer _ , it says,  _ and yoU will die alone _

 

Also, it’s from two days ago.

 

Probably why he’s so exhausted. 

 

The door opens into his legs, and he moves them belatedly as the Amis stream out. Courfeyrac and Bahorel grin at him, Joly gives him a half disapproving, half concerned look. Enjolras is all disapproval. 

 

Eponine steps primly over his legs. Grantaire pouts up at her.

 

“Can you drive me home?”

 

“I don’t have a car, Grantaire,” she says with remarkable patience. 

 

“Can you walk me home?”

 

“You live, like, three miles away. Take the bus.” 

 

He lets his lip wobble. “‘M tired.”

 

“You’re high,” she says. 

 

“Tired,” he insists, and proves it by relaxing every muscle in his body and trying to meld with the floor. She nudges him.

 

“Stop that. I don’t know what to tell you, R, you’re going to have to get yourself home.”

 

Grantaire feels both concerned and sad and apathetic about the current situation. He’s probably gonna get mugged, but that’s fine. He doesn’t have anything important.

 

He climbs to his feet, oozes his way down the stairs like the slime monster he feels like, and runs face first into something. It’s angry. It’s Enjolras. 

 

“Watch where you’re going,” he snaps, and Grantaire mumbles vaguely before continuing on his way. How’d he get here in the first place? Maybe he biked.

 

He inspects the bike rack for a solid minute before remembering that he doesn’t even own a bike and is still staring in muddled confusion when Enjolras comes out in a jingle of bells, and, like, self righteousness.

 

“What are you doing?”   
  


“I don’t have a bike,” Grantaire answers, and they both kind of stare at each other for a minute.

 

“Okay?”

 

Grantaire nods, possibly more times than entirely necessary, and turns to go. 

 

“Wait,” says Enjolras, reluctantly. “Do you have any way of getting home?”

 

Grantaire points at his feet. Enjolras purses his lips in disapproval. 

“Fine. Do you want a ride?”

 

He looks like he already regrets it, which is vaguely insulting. Grantaire stares at him. 

 

“I can drive you home,” enunciates Enjolras. 

 

“Oh,” says Grantaire. “Uh.” This is unexpected. He wants to hug him, which is also unexpected. Also, Enjolras is so full of sharp edges that he’d probably be sliced to tissue paper ribbons. “Yeah, thanks.”

 

He tips dizzily, and Enjolras steadies him gingerly and waves him to his car. Grantaire manages to get buckled with no further issue. 

 

“Why are you high?” Asks Enjolras abruptly. Grantaire sucks his bottom lip into his mouth.

 

“Couldn’t paint, couldn’t think, couldn’t sleep. Still, but-” he hold up his colorful hands. Enjolras doesn’t look over, so he shoves the red and blue together and tries to make purple. It doesn’t work.

 

The car’s silence is broken almost three minutes later, when Enjolras has to ask for directions and Grantaire has to look up his address. Jesus, he’s stoned. 

 

Enjolras gets out with him, and Grantaire frowns at him. “What’re you doing?”

 

“I don’t think you can walk up stairs right now,” he says honestly. Grantaire concedes the point- drugs and sleep deprivation do not make for spectacular balance. 

 

His flat is literally messier than it’s ever been and there’s paint on the walls. (Hopefully paint. It’s red. It’s a little bit scary. Grantaire hurries past it.)

 

“Woah,” he says, freezing in his hallway. Behind him, Enjolras makes a choked noise.

 

No wonder. It’d be a little disconcerting to see a massive painting of yourself glaring at you, full on avenging angel mode. 

 

“So that’s what I was painting,” says Grantaire a little faintly, mystery solved. It’s seriously huge- taller than his table, which it’s propped against- and fucking-

 

Grantaire doesn’t actually have the words to describe it. Terrifying, maybe. Beautiful. It’s rare he likes his own art, but he wants to bask in the harsh glow of this one for (if not forever) a couple days.

 

“Is that me?”

“Uh,” says Grantaire, for maybe the sixth time that day. Enjolras’s mouth is slightly open, and his hand half raises towards the painting when he goes to inspect it further.  

 

“I- Grantaire,” he says, his tone funny. “That’s  _ amazing _ . I didn’t- that’s  _ me _ ,” he says like he can’t quite believe it. “Why am I so- angry?”

 

Grantaire laughs. “Angels, man. They’re not exactly cuddly.”

 

Enjolras traces the gold wings arching off the canvas. 

 

“Angels,” he repeats. “Why-”

 

Grantaire raises his left eyebrow at him with as much scorn as he can muster, which is not much right now.

 

“Have you seen yourself when you get in a rant?” He thinks over what he’s just said. “Actually, no, of course you haven’t, unless there was a mirror or something-”

 

He cuts himself off with a huge yawn. Enjolras looks up sharply.

 

“When’d you last sleep?”

 

“A couple days ago,” says Grantaire casually, and winces when Enjolras chokes.

 

“Christ, ‘Taire, go to sleep.”

 

“You can’t tell me what to do,” mumbles Grantaire, but his eyes are already closing. He sways. 

 

“Christ,” says Enjolras again, and then everything goes sort of dark and blurry and Grantaire sleeps.

 

\---

 

He wakes up on his couch, cuddling a pillow. This isn’t unusual.

 

What is unusual is the post it note stuck to the pillow, and- Grantaire takes a quick look around- almost every other surface. And the lingering smell of eggs.

 

He reads the note on his pillow upside down- ‘ _ you snore _ ’, lovely- and scrubs at his eyes. The one on the coffee table (actually, on the stack of books on the coffee table) says ‘ _ also, you drool _ ’.

 

Thanks, Enjolras. 

 

He stumbles up, over to the wall. 

 

“ _ I cleaned off the red paint (it was paint, right?) since it looked like you were never going to do that and I got bored. _ ”

 

Grantaire blinks. That’s surprisingly thoughtful.

 

The one on the actual table tells him to eat something, and then another one points him over to the counter where there’s an actual something to eat. A breakfast burrito. He wrinkles his nose appreciatively. 

 

There’s some more stuck to the fridge- “ _ dear lord do you even have food? _ ” and “ _ buy food, please _ ”- and another on his microwave (“ _ did something explode in here? _ ”) (for the record, the answer is yes). He’s surprisingly unconcerned with Enjolras going through his apartment.

 

He gets to the painting, and the note is stuck on the very edge. 

 

“ _ This is incredible. _ ”

 

Something warm floods through Grantaire, and he can’t help but smile like an idiot. He carefully peels it off, sticks it to his fridge- on second thought, he pins it down with a magnet. 

 

He’s a lovesick idiot. Whatever.

  
Burrito finished, comfortably full, his eyelids droop. He yawns, screwing his eyes shut, and stumbles to his bedroom finish his sleep. 

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on tumblr at lesgrandtears.tumblr.com jsyk


End file.
